Evolutionary Psychopathology

A Unified Approach

Marco Del Giudice

Presents an integrative framework for evolutionary psychopathology, synthesizing decades of research on the evolution of mental disorders

Introduces and details the FSD model, the first classification system for mental disorders based on evolutionary concepts

Covers a wide range of common conditions, from depression and eating disorders to autism and schizophrenia and critically reviews existing evolutionary models of each disorder and explores implications for epidemiology and development

Offers a seamless treatment of mental disorders and normative individual differences in personality and cognition, integrating the latest findings from genetics, neurobiology, and computational modeling

Evolutionary Psychopathology

A Unified Approach

Marco Del Giudice

Description

Mental disorders arise from neural and psychological mechanisms that have been built and shaped by natural selection across our evolutionary history. Looking at psychopathology through the lens of evolution is the only way to understand the deeper nature of mental disorders and turn a mass of behavioral, genetic, and neurobiological findings into a coherent, theoretically grounded discipline. The rise of evolutionary psychopathology is part of an exciting scientific movement in psychology and medicine -- a movement that is fundamentally transforming the way we think about health and disease.

Evolutionary Psychopathology takes steps toward a unified approach to psychopathology, using the concepts of life history theory -- a biological account of how individual differences in development, physiology and behavior arise from tradeoffs in survival and reproduction -- to build an integrative framework for mental disorders. This book reviews existing evolutionary models of specific conditions and connects them in a broader perspective, with the goal of explaining the large-scale patterns of risk and comorbidity that characterize psychopathology. Using the life history framework allows for a seamless integration of mental disorders with normative individual differences in personality and cognition, and offers new conceptual tools for the analysis of developmental, genetic, and neurobiological data.The concepts presented in Evolutionary Psychopathology are used to derive a new taxonomy of mental disorders, the Fast-Slow-Defense (FSD) model. The FSD model is the first classification system explicitly based on evolutionary concepts, a biologically grounded alternative to transdiagnostic models. The book reviews a wide range of common mental disorders, discusses their classification in the FSD model, and identifies functional subtypes within existing diagnostic categories.

Evolutionary Psychopathology

A Unified Approach

Marco Del Giudice

Author Information

Marco Del Giudice is a professor of psychology at the University of New Mexico. His work explores a broad range of topics at the intersection of human behavior, evolution, and development. Specific research areas include stress neurobiology, developmental plasticity, sex differences in personality and social behavior, and evolutionary models of mental disorders.

Evolutionary Psychopathology

A Unified Approach

Marco Del Giudice

Reviews and Awards

"Darwin has finally met Freud, in the first true synthesis of evolutionary biology with psychiatry and psychology. The result -- this book -- is an insightful and deeply-novel analysis of why and how we as humans are beset with a specific range of mental illnesses, in the context of our evolutionary history." -- Bernard Crespi, Simon Fraser University

"Marco Del Giudice, an innovative and prolific evolutionary thinker, has produced a highly accessible text on evolutionary psychopathology through a combination of rigorous scholarship and great eloquence. He proposes a novel and eminently plausible framework for rethinking the nature and classification of mental disorder based on life history theory and emotional defenses. In my view, this text is destined to become essential reading for all psychiatrists and psychologists interested in understanding the place of evolution in shaping human nature." -- Riadh Abed, FRCPsych, Founding Chair of the Evolutionary Psychiatry Special Interest Group, Royal College of Psychiatrists, UK

"Evolutionary Psychopathology provides a framework integrating not only the extensive but fragmented literature on evolutionary psychology and psychopathology, but also a variety of other research lines emerging in this period of Kuhnian 'extraordinary science'. I believe that psychologists and psychiatrists of different theoretical orientations should be aware of the author's 'life history theory', and try to test it in research and clinical settings." -- Mario Maj, Professor of Psychiatry, University of Naples

"Still divided between the biomedical model and the psychosocial perspective, psychiatry urgently needs new theoretical frameworks to regain scientific credibility. By integrating in a masterful manner data from epidemiology, developmental psychology, and neurobiology, Marco Del Giudice shows the potential of life history theory in improving our understanding of the origin of mental disorders. Evolutionary Psychopathology fills a void in psychopathology research and should be a mandatory addition to the reference libraries of evolutionary psychiatrists." -- Alfonso Troisi, Professor of Psychiatry, University of Rome Tor Vergata